| name | strategic-pressure-test |
| description | Stress-test a strategic decision, GTM plan, product direction, or business bet before committing — using real context from Unabyss about your pipeline, customers, market position, and prior decisions. Use this skill whenever the user wants to pressure-test an idea, get adversarial feedback on a plan, challenge their own assumptions, or make sure they're not missing something before a big commitment. Also trigger when someone says things like 'am I thinking about this right', 'what am I missing', 'poke holes in this', or 'should we actually do this'. |
Strategic Pressure Test
Play the skeptic. Take a strategic direction the founder is considering and push back hard — not to kill the idea, but to surface the weaknesses before they become expensive mistakes. Grounded in real context from Unabyss so the challenges are specific, not generic.
Inspired by the gstack /plan-ceo-review pattern: find the 10-star version of the plan hiding inside the request, or find the fatal flaw before anyone else does.
Required Integrations
This skill uses Unabyss MCP — query for constraints and prior decisions, agentic_query for market and customer signals.
If Unabyss is not connected, tell the user: "This skill requires Unabyss MCP. You can connect it from the Tools menu."
How to Run
Step 1 — Understand the plan
Ask the user to describe the strategic direction, decision, or plan they want pressure-tested. One paragraph is enough. If they've already described it, proceed.
Step 2 — Load context from Unabyss
Two queries:
Query A — Constraints and prior decisions (use query):
What constraints are we operating under right now — runway, team size, bandwidth, commitments already made? What prior decisions are relevant to [topic]? What have we already tried or ruled out in this area?
Query B — Market and customer signals (use agentic_query only if the plan involves customers, GTM, or market positioning):
What are customers currently telling us about [relevant area]? What does our pipeline show about demand for [direction]? What objections or friction have come up when this topic has appeared in sales or customer conversations?
Step 3 — Run the pressure test
Apply four lenses in sequence. Be direct. Pull no punches. Reference Unabyss context in each challenge.
Strategic Pressure Test — [Plan / Decision]
🔴 The strongest case against this
The single most compelling reason not to do this — the argument a smart skeptic would lead with. Grounded in your actual situation, not generic risk-aversion.
⚠️ Assumptions that could be wrong
The 3–4 key assumptions this plan depends on. For each:
- The assumption
- How confident we should be that it's true
- What would need to be true for it to hold
- What to do if it's wrong
🕳️ What's being ignored
Things the plan doesn't account for — prior commitments that conflict, customer signals that suggest different priorities, resource constraints, timing risks, or market realities from Unabyss that complicate the picture.
💡 The stronger version
If this direction is right, what's the sharper, more specific, or better-scoped version of it? What would the 10-star version look like — the one that addresses the weaknesses above while keeping the core insight?
✅ The one question to answer first
Before committing: the single most important unknown. If you could only validate one thing before deciding, what is it — and how would you find out fast?
Tone
Adversarial but constructive. The goal isn't to kill the idea — it's to make the founder stronger going in. If the plan survives the pressure test, they should feel more confident, not less.
Output Rules
- Use
query for constraints and prior decisions (fast), agentic_query only if market/customer signals are needed
- Every challenge must reference something real — from Unabyss or from the plan itself
- The "stronger version" section is mandatory — pure critique without a better path is not useful
- If Unabyss context is thin, say so and proceed with what's available — partial context is still better than none
- No preamble before the report header
- Keep under 500 words
